


Who Wins The Joy Of Love

by vachtar



Category: The Old Guard (Comics)
Genre: Awkward truces following several days of attempted murder, First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25004335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/pseuds/vachtar
Summary: It takes three days of bloodshed for Yusuf to finally accept that whatever demons are clawing himself and his enemy up from their graves again and again andagain, they aren’t going to be beat out with his sword.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 45
Kudos: 714





	Who Wins The Joy Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> This comic has been one of my favorites for years and I'm so excited for the upcoming movie. My eleventh century historical knowledge, however, is fairly limited; please forgive any mistakes.
> 
> Title is bastardized from a William IX poem - "a man who wins to the joy of her love/will live a hundred years". Seemed fitting.

It takes three days of bloodshed for Yusuf to finally accept that whatever demons are clawing himself and his enemy up from their graves again and again and _again_ , they aren’t going to be beat out with his sword.

He spits out the blood pooling in his throat and dislodges the knife from his stomach. The wound aches, but he knows by now that with the blade removed his skin will heal over clean and unblemished in a minute. He takes that minute to squint at the sky overhead, trying to gauge the time. Early evening, still enough light to see the battlefield by, but growing lower. Somewhere off to his right, his enemy shifts and rises with a pained groan, ready to go another round. 

Yusuf is tired, and covered in his own blood, and surrounded by the rotting corpses of his former allies and friends. He glances at the knife still in his hand for a moment - finely made, but old, the kind of heirloom a father might pass down to his son and hope would never see battle - and tosses it away into the dirt before he hauls himself up.

The battle is long over, and the only other signs of life around are the buzzing of fat, dark flies as they descend on the scene, but he can barely make out the sound of water, and he makes his way towards it. Behind him, the enemy moves with a rustle of clothing and armor. Yusuf doesn’t bother turning around to look. If he is stabbed in the back, so be it; he’ll just get up again, and return the blow, again.

Trees line the riverside, startlingly green and alive to Yusuf’s eyes. Bay, and tamarisk, and pine, knotted old trunks and fresh young saplings alike. He reaches the edge of the water and strips off his armor and his clothing from underneath it, leaving it all a heap on the bank. The water swells up, blessedly cold around his legs, and he wades in naked and feels the last few days slough off his skin along with the dust. The blood dried on his hands flakes and melts off, staining the surface for only a moment before the lazy current carries it away.

At its deepest the water only comes to his stomach, and he plunges his head in, raking his fingers through his hair underwater and wincing when he catches on a snag. He’s spent so long locked in battle, and before that with his fellows in the caliph’s army, that he’s grown accustomed to the smell of men who haven’t bathed properly in weeks, but now the clear water makes him aware of exactly how much he reeks. His stomach makes its emptiness known to him and he lifts his head from the river when his lungs start to protest. Behind him, the sound comes of footsteps on the riverbank.

Yusuf turns and regards the enemy. He’s as bloodsoaked and dirtied as Yusuf had been, still wearing his armor and below it, his once-white clothing now the same grimy color as the rest of him. 

“Hello,” Yusuf says. The enemy - the man - startles, like he hadn’t thought until now that Yusuf could speak. He responds with what Yusuf assumes is a greeting in kind, though the words are unfamiliar to him. 

Yusuf steps back further into the river, leaving several arm lengths of distance between them, and gestures at the water. The man glances at Yusuf’s discarded pile of clothing and armor, and the armistice Yusuf is offering him, and his shoulders slump in exhaustion.

He strips his own armor and clothing off, and makes a wry face at Yusuf’s laugh when he tosses the battered sword in his hand down to the dirt. The man hisses under his breath when his feet sink into the cold water, but pushes on, seeming to find as much relief in it as Yusuf did. They keep their distance and after a few moments, Yusuf sighs and dunks his head back into the water. The man doesn’t seem inclined to attack him - perhaps he has enough honor to not strike at a naked opponent with his back turned, or he’s simply come to the same conclusions Yusuf has, that for now at least, there’s no point.

Yusuf finishes cleaning his hair and splashes down into the water for a moment to wash the blood and the dirty water dripping down onto his shoulders, and when he surfaces again the man is looking at him, like the noise had surprised him. It makes Yusuf laugh, quietly. The man still doesn’t turn his back, but he does smile uncertainly, and cups water in his palms to splash on his face.

He’s handsome, now that he’s not covered in mud the entrails of Yusuf’s friends, a sharp-faced and lean man of about the same age as Yusuf himself. He moves with a hawkish, tight grace, and suddenly Yusuf wants to draw him and see if he can capture that. He handled his sword well; Yusuf has enough memories of the bite of it into his torso to attest to that. Now, though, he’s muttering to himself with the cadence of a prayer as he smears the blood off his arms.

“What shall I call you?” Yusuf asks. Confusion is writ across the man's face; an invader doesn’t need speak the language of the lands he and his people are bloodying. He simply needs to follow orders, and kill and die where it's demanded of him. Yusuf wades closer by a step, two, and the man doesn’t run. Progress, then. 

Yusuf places a hand on his chest and slows his speech down. “Yusuf.” Only his personal name. Perhaps they’ll have time for him to teach the man his whole name, the long line of his history behind it, before Yusuf finds a way to kill him that will stick. “Yusuf.” Exaggerated, like he’s speaking to a child.

“Yusuf,” the man repeats. The syllables are awkward rolling off his tongue, but almost correct. The man regards Yusuf for a long moment and his expression is impossible to read. 

“Come on,” says Yusuf, “if I’m to spend three days killing you and you’re still going to refuse to die, you can at least do me the decency of sharing your name. What shall I put on your grave marker when I finally succeed?” he laughs.

The man doesn’t understand the words, but the tone is apparently clear enough even to his uncivilized ear, and he looks at Yusuf sardonically before placing his own palm against his breastbone. “Ni-co-lo,” he sounds out.

“Nicolo.” The man nods, and Yusuf smiles at him. Now the enemy has a name, and perhaps with a brief peace between them they can find food, and a place to rest, and begin to unravel whatever mystery is keeping them tied to one another. In the distance, the carrion birds wheeling over dusk on the now-abandoned battlefield begin to make their descent.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Who wins the joy of love [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289311) by [Chani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chani/pseuds/Chani)




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